Statins Up Type 2 Diabetes Risk, Overweight at Greatest Risk

NEWARK

Further evidence that statin use increases the risk for the development of type 2 diabetes has been published, with the work showing that the risk is particularly high in people who are overweight, obese, or have prediabetes.

Findings from the prospective, population-based study were published onlineMarch 5 in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology by Fariba Ahmadizar, PhD, of the department of epidemiology at Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and colleagues.

Several previous observational studies and trials have reported an increased risk of incident type 2 diabetes in people treated with statins, but most of them have been lacking in details about glycemic traits.

The incidence seen in observational studies such as the current one has been much higher than in randomized trials, 44% versus 9% to 13%, Ahmadizar and colleagues note.

Link Between Statins/Diabetes Only Significant in Men, Higher BMIs?

In further sensitivity analyses stratified for BMI at baseline, the association between statins and type 2 diabetes was only significant among those who were overweight or obese but not among those with normal BMI (HR, 1.42 vs 1.18).

And when stratified by gender at baseline, the finding was significant only in men and not women (HR, 1.52 vs 1.28).

Eckel commented: “It was disappointing to have no HbA1c data, but in general those with higher HbA1c without type 2 diabetes are at higher risk, which is supported by their glucose data.”

Eckel is a member of advisory boards and/or is a consultant for Sanofi, Regeneron, Kowa, Novo Nordisk, Merck, and Endece.